Saturday, December 21, 2013

Guest Post: Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors
And Other Surprises

Colonel Donald J. Myers USMC (Ret)

On Tuesday, our president met behind closed doors with CEOs
from Google, Twitter, Apple, and other tech experts to discuss what can be done
about the poor performance of the healthcare start, and the National
Security Agency collecting phone records on all Americans. I suppose that
we will never know what was discussed unless it turns out to be something that
can be portrayed as positive. I don't know about everyone else, but I am
fed up with all of the closed door meetings by our elected officials.

Senator Patty Murray (D) and representative Paul Ryan (R) came up with a
budget deal that the entire congress approved on Tuesday. there hasn't
been a budget for five years and now we are passing a two year budget. I doubt
that any of our congressional representatives read the entire bill, but WE are
the ones who are stuck with it. We will continue to add to the debt with
promises that cuts will be made in the future. Wow, I am really impressed.

I appreciate the fact that there are some things that must be negotiated in secret,
but it seems that now almost everything is negotiated in secret and the voting
time is so short that it is impossible to read the bill. CSPAN covers the
general meetings of both houses, but more often than not, the discussions that
we want to hear are not covered.

To add to the secrecy, the White House Press Corps has not been allowed to have
photographers in selected meetings. The official White House photographers pass
out the photos that they have taken. That is not quite the same because they can
be posed for effect and to make a point for the administration.

Remember that the ObamaCare bill was passed with a lot of secrecy and the
actual vote took place on Christmas eve with not a single republican vote for
it in either house. Also remember that then Speaker Nancy
Pelosi said that we had to pass the bill to learn what was in it. We
are now learning what is in it and we do not like it. Senator Patty Murray
is saying much the same for the current budget when she said that reducing the
cost of living allowance for military retirees to include those retired
because of wounds should not have happened, but that that will be corrected in
the near future. I'm sure they are waiting with bated breath.

There does not seem to be any accountability for actions that have gone astray.
The IRS scandal saw no one held accountable. The same is true for the NSA
fiasco and the rollout of Obamacare. We were promised that this would be the
most open administration in history. It seems like that promise is much like the
promise to keep your insurance and doctor if we liked them. Trust must be
earned on a daily basis. James Kouzes and Barry Posner have conducted extensive
research on leadership throughout the world. According to their research the
top attribute expected of leaders is integrity. That includes doing what you
said you would do and being where you said you would be. integrity cannot be
faked for any length of time. As Abraham Lincoln stated,"You can fool some
of the people all the time and all the people some of the time, but you can not
fool all of the people all of the time." I think we are finally
discovering that fact.

*****

Donald J. Myers a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps,
is a regular columnist for Hernando Today. He lives in Spring Hill and can be
contacted at dmyersusmc@aol.com.